Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: fe‘ilātün fe‘ilātün fe‘ilātün fe‘ilün

Göñlüme zülf-i zırıh-pūşı k’anuñ mesken olur
Ḳafes-i ṭūṭī belī ḳandayısa āhen olur
Ġam degül ġamzelerüñ göñlüm evin delse müdām
Her ne deñlü kim ola pençere ev rūşen olur
Sīne her laḥẓa fürūġ-ı ruḫ-ı yār ile ‘aceb
Gül-şen olur gibiyiken neyiçün kül-ḫan olur
Gül yüzüñ ḥasreti öldürse beni āḫir-i kār
Ḳanda ilterse ṣabā ṭopraġumı gül-şen olur
Şol ḳadar tīr-i ḫadeñgüñ ki yidi ölse Münīr
Pāre-i tīr ile hep türbem içi demren olur

In English

1. (No wonder) that her mail-clad lock makes my heart its dwelling; the parrot's cage, yes, wherever it may be, is of iron.

2. No matter if your glances keep piercing the house of my heart; the more windows there are, the brighter the house becomes.

3. It is a wonder that the breast, at every moment about to become a rose garden through the radiance of the beloved's cheek, should instead become a furnace (külhan, the stokehole of a bath).

4. If longing for your rose face kills me in the end, wherever the morning breeze carries my dust, that place will become a rose garden.

5. Münîr has taken so many of your arrows (tīr-i ḫadeng) that, should he die, the inside of his tomb would be all arrowheads with the fragments of arrows.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a five-couplet Turkish ghazal (gazel) and is the seventy-fifth of the Turkish ghazals in the edition (tg 75). The metre is "fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilün". Ersoy's list of refrains places this ghazal among those with the refrain (redif) "olur" (becomes); the rhyme is the "-en" sound before it: mesken, āhen, rūşen, kül-ḫan, gül-şen, demren. The poem is found in all three manuscripts of the divan (VT 115a, VY 100a, Ü 33b); no variant readings are recorded in the apparatus. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The opening couplet (matla) rests on the image of a cage. The beloved's lock is described as "zırıh-pūş" (mail-clad); the rings of the lock recall the rings of chain mail. The heart is a parrot and the lock its cage; a parrot's cage, wherever it may be, is of iron. There is a congruence of images (tenasüp) between "zırıh" (mail) and "āhen" (iron). The hardness of the lock and the heart's captivity in that cage are thus joined in a single picture; this analysis is our own observation.

The second couplet builds an unexpected logic. The glances are piercing the house of the heart; but the lover does not mind, for as the windows multiply the house grows brighter. The turning of the wound into a source of light is a conceit close to hüsn-i talil (a fanciful attribution of cause). The phrase "ġam degül" (no matter, literally no grief) also sets up a play of sound with "ġamze" (glance), which begins with "ġam"; pain becomes a window that lets in the beloved's beauty. This interpretation is our own inference.

The third and fourth couplets are built on the contrast between the rose garden and the furnace. Between "gül-şen" (rose garden) and "kül-ḫan" (furnace) there is a likeness of sound in which only the first letter differs; this is an example of the pun (cinas). The breast, about to become a rose garden through the radiance of the beloved's cheek, turns into a külhan, the stokehole of a bath, because the same radiance burns it. In the fourth couplet, even after the lover's death, his dust is carried by the morning breeze and the place where it falls becomes a rose garden. The word "gül-şen" stands in the rhyme in both couplets and ties this contrast together.

The pen-name couplet closes with a hyperbole. The lover has taken so many arrows that, should he die, the inside of his tomb would fill with arrowheads. "Demren" (arrowhead) means, in its dictionary sense, the iron at the tip of an arrow; together with the word "āhen" (iron) in the opening couplet, a bond of meaning is set up between the beginning and the end of the ghazal. This is our own observation. There is also a congruence of arrow images among "tīr", "ḫadeng" and "demren".

Bibliography

Online sources